


Alphonse and the Amazing, Wonderful, Very Good, No Bad Day

by ang3lba3, Mellomailbox



Series: Polycule? More like poly COOL [10]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Al POV, Al centric, Aromantic, Asexual Character, Fluff, M/M, Sibling Incest, Slice of Life, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, mentioned ed/al smooching but it's casual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:00:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22792141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ang3lba3/pseuds/ang3lba3, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellomailbox/pseuds/Mellomailbox
Summary: This series describes a polycule between a lot of major FMA:B characters. Main pairings vary per fic, though others may be referenced in any.***Alphonse has a very good day, on one of his favorite holidays. Even though it's dreadfully sad how many people bought the wrong gift on accident for their long distance partners and need to find someone who can take it.Good days have nights though, and there's something more at play than just good luck. Something he hasn't told anyone about, not even Edward.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric/Edward Elric, Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Series: Polycule? More like poly COOL [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1578928
Comments: 6
Kudos: 52





	Alphonse and the Amazing, Wonderful, Very Good, No Bad Day

February 14th is a good day for Alphonse Elric.

He wakes up feeling the good kind of rested, the kind of rested that almost never comes when the weather is overcast and chilly at best, his entire body a hum of warm contentment. It’s not the kind that glues him under his blankets, either, he’s infused with a restless energy that demands he _get up,_ an inexplicable optimism that promises _better things are waiting._ His awful alarm clock doesn’t even get the chance to screech at him, and he switches it off a full five minutes before it would.

When he comes downstairs he’s greeted with his favorite person, a cup of tea, and a warm cinnamon roll. His favorite person is passed out on his couch, arms and legs akimbo, Al’s favorite cardigan rolled under his head as a pillow. He’s drooling. There’s mustard on his chin and the collar of his shirt. It’s very old, dark and crusted.

Al loves him _so much._

He takes his tea and sits on the arm of the couch, casually carding his fingers through Ed’s loose hair. It’s like silk, like water across his nerves, fingers numb and tingling. Ed doesn’t stir, though he does let out a disgustingly wet snort.

Al does his hair for him, because he’s nice like that.

When he’s done Ed’s hair is a perfect french braid, gold and wheat and shiny. His fingers feel alive and charmed, and his tea has cooled to the perfect temperature. He ties it off under Ed’s chin and smiles beautifically. Tying shoelaces together is an _amateur’s_ game. When Ed wakes up with his hair braided over his face, he’s going to choke _and_ fall.

It’s a wonderful day.

Getting ready is a breeze. Everything is where it’s supposed to be, and he leaves ten minutes early to the symphony of birds and “Mmfff WHAT--”

Al shuts the door on the crash and heads to work.

The walk over is delightful. There’s a patch of early spring sunlight that follows him, inexplicable, wonderful in the mid-February slump. There’s puddles exactly where he’d like them to be, of the perfect depth to splash in a bit without getting his trouser hems muddy. _Five_ people walking their dogs stop to let him pet them, and they are all _very_ good boys and girls. One person is walking a gaggle of cats, which is not something he was aware happened in Central, and he exchanges cat walking tips with them. They have many.

And best of all, he left so early that he’s not even going to be late. He spots a lottery ticket on the ground, and snorts at the skip of his heart, but picks it up. Remarkably, it’s only a bit tattered. With his luck today, who knows? Maybe he’ll win something.

“Excuse me,” a girl says, and she’s short with chestnut hair and round cheeks. She’s clutching a paper bag to her chest as she approaches him in front of Central Command.

“Hm?” He responds, and he didn’t need his cane today but he brought it anyway. He leans on it so that he’s closer to her height.

“I--um, you see, I bought this for my boyfriend but it’s too big, and well, I work as a courier and I’ve seen you wear them and thought,” and she lifts a pale blue and yellow cardigan out of the bag. There are little yellow cats embroidered on the pockets.

Al gasps in amazement, because it’s the most perfect thing he’s _ever seen,_ but he has to be responsible. “I am an alchemist... I could probably—”

She blushes a bright red, and shakes her head, shoving the bag at him. “Uh! No! That’s not necessary! Really! I think you’ll...like it better...anyways… than my boyfriend...whose name is Zachary. He lives in East City. With blue hair. I mean eyes. He’s real.”

Obviously she’s telling the truth, and Al smiles at her, warm all the way to his toes. Well, he will be now, and if he has to admit it he was feeling a bit nippy since he left without his cardigan this morning.

“Well, your boyfriend has terrible taste in sweaters then, but at least he has good taste where it counts.” he takes the sweater, and pats her on the shoulder. It’s terribly forward, but he’s just in such a good _mood,_ and she’s so _nice._ She’s lucky he didn’t try and hug her.

“Can I hug you?” she asks, and then her hand comes to her mouth in embarrassment and she turns scarlet.

“I was trying not to hug _you!”_ Al says, and wraps her up in his arms. “It’s just such a great morning, isn’t it? Love’s really in the air. Or--”

He blushes, and releases her. “I didn’t mean to sound like that. Zachary’s a very lucky man, ma’am. Thank you again!”

Al bends down to the packed dirt at his feet and taps his hands together around the cardigan, a gentle blue arc accenting his transmutation. He comes up with a fist full of roses and gives them to her with a wink and a nod before turning on his heel. After all, he can’t just accept something for nothing.

It’s a bit flirtatious, but she doesn’t seem to mind, and he can hear her laughing giddily behind him. Besides, if she wants to reimburse the sweater, she can hawk those for crazy amounts. She can get Zachary something _really_ nice, and in his size this time.

***

Al walks into the office. It’s a bit of a longer affair than it should be, even with Private Chad and Katie (a message runner) being so helpful with the door and the maneuvering of the wheelbarrow and all.

“Uh,” Havoc says, cigarette dropping out of his mouth and directly into his coffee. “Are those… gifts?”

“Yes,” Al says, and turns to thank Private Chad and Katie personally. “I’m really sorry that I tore you away from your posts--I can write a note for both of you? Excusing you to your officers?”

“It’s no trouble at all Steel Nerve,” Katie says in a rush. Al winces.

“Just Alphonse is fine,” he says.

“I’ll take a _handwritten note_ with my name on it and your name please, _Alphonse,_ ” Private Chad says, frantically ripping the front page off of what looks like an official report. Al smiles indulgently, remembering his own days of running reports for senior officers. “Happy Valentines day, by the way! Alphonse!”

That gleam in his eye is alarming. Maybe he’s getting sick, in which case getting him leniency now is all the more important. Al writes quickly: _Private Chad was so kind as to help me with some errands this morning. Please direct all complaints with his performance to Lieutenant Alphonse Elric, as I have none. Happy Valentine’s Day!_

He dots the i in Valentines with a little heart, and signs it swoopingly. Usually he wouldn’t bother with the full cursive, but he’s in _such_ a good mood today. He dots the i in Elric with a small kitty face.

Katie’s eyes are round and hopeful, and Al smiles and writes a similar one for her.

“Where’s my valentine?” General Mustang asks from the doorway to his office where he’s leaning against the frame in casual amusement.

Katie and Private Chad both make repulsed faces, and make some semblance of an excuse as they dash away.

Al strides over to Havoc’s desk, scribbles something on a sticky note, and sticks it onto General Mustang’s chest, right under his commendation pins.

“Fraternization?” reads Riza in a flat voice. “Why I haven’t been a frat boy in 30 years!”

Mustang rips the sticky note off his chest, and glares at both the writing and the doodle. “Is that—”

“I think you look _dashing,_ ” Alphonse says. “Just dashing.”

Mustang perks up a little around the edges, but is still frowning at the sticky note. “Alphonse, I’m not—”

“You can barely even notice! It’s just a little, it’s perfectly natural for a dignified man of your venerable age,” Al says, and pats the General’s arm consolingly. “I really do have to get to the research labs now, I’m overseeing some projects. I just stopped to drop off all the gifts— you wouldn’t believe how many people bought the wrong thing! I’ve had the best luck running into them just as they were about to throw it out.”

“ _Wrong thing_ —half of these have your name embroidered on them! ELRIC! I’M NOT _BALD!”_ the General yells after him as he leaves. The door swings shut on his high pitched shrieking, muffling it to a dull whine.

Al smiles.

It’s a _good day._

***

“This isn’t about you, Edward. It’s about Alphonse.”

“If it’s about Al then it’s about me and I said no!”

“You _can’t_ say no, it’s not your choice!”

“If it’s about AL then it’s about ME and I said NO.”

“I reject your no! This is something that I think would make him happy, Ed. He’s been so lonely, and --”

“How can he be lonely when he has us!”

“But he doesn’t _have_ us, not in the way we have each other.”

“Maybe he won’t want--”

“You don’t know that until you _ask_ him, Edward. You love him, don’t you?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then let him make his own choices. Please, let me do this for him. I care about him too.”

“...I don’t know.”

Al pulls his red wheelbarrow by the handle, getting progressively closer to their house. He’s reinforced the sides with thick cardboard and made them taller, so he’s not worried about anything toppling out, the way he had been earlier. He is worried about— whatever he’s walking into. It’s been a good day. A _very_ good day. It has to stop at some point. Maybe now. And it’s not that he doesn’t like Roy, but this sounds like an argument about his... _his thing,_ with romance, and he trusts Ed to know him better on that score than _Roy_ knows him.

Roy had panicked so hard when Al kissed him that he’d given _brother_ a panicked meltdown.

The door is open, which is incredibly unsafe for the private residence of a General. That’s probably why he can hear them screeching down the sidewalk. He checks to see if there are any paparazzi around, since Ed and Roy’s relationship is supposed to be a secret. It’s a good thing that he doesn’t spot anyone, because they’re _bad_ at secrets.

“You’re bad at secrets,” he says as he enters.

Ed whips around with a squeak and shoves something at Al. “Igotthisforyou happy Valentines day!”

Al looks down, and the argument crystallizes into something amazing, and furry, and small, and warm, and _purring._ “Baby!” he gasps, and takes the kitten into both his arms, dropping the handle to his wheelbarrow and his cane.

“Hey!” Roy yelps, as he graciously catches the cane with his shin. “Edward _Elric,_ that is _my—_ ”

“Oh you’re just a little ball of fluff and love and all things nice, aren’t you?” Al says adoringly. The cat looks up at him with its big eyes, and he lets out a sound like a teakettle when he sees the black heart around its left eye. “A BABY! A LOVE BABY! ON THE DAY OF LOVE!”

“You seemed lonely lately,” Ed says, face pink, “and I know I always said no when we were traveling--” he has to raise his voice to be heard over Roy’s indignant sputtering, “-- but we’re not and even though Roy was really against it, for some weird reason, probably because he’s a selfish jerk who doesn’t want attention split from him—”

“I’m going to kill everyone in this house and then myself,” Roy says, softly.

“--I just knew that you needed him. So I got you the most perfect cat ever and it was all my idea and I get all the credit and kisses and chocolates,” Ed finishes triumphantly.

Al glances behind him to make sure he’d shut the door—he hadn’t, the wheelbarrow is still blocking it open. He can’t take gifts out of it to give to Ed while someone might  _ see  _ him regifting, and he can't kiss him either— and then physically hip and shoulder bumps Ed out of line of sight of windows and the doors, snagging a velvet heart full of chocolates. Then he gives him a big kiss and the velvet heart, because he’d earned it. He also gives another big kiss to the kitten,  _ who’d certainly earned it oh yes they did oh yes they DID,  _ and nothing to Roy, who is making aroused-angry spluttering noises back in the entryway. 

“So how many Valentines did you get, Roy?” Al asks, politely.

Roy’s noises get louder, hit some kind of peak, and then cut off as the noise of the wheelbarrow being dragged in and the door slamming shut distract him. 

“Just one,” he finally says, wryly amused when he rounds the corner to look at Ed gobbling the chocolates as fast as he can. It’s a dangerous game he’s playing, since Al hasn’t stopped hugging him, and his elbow is very close to Al’s face. The kitten is snuggling between their chests happily. “But I think it’s the best one I could have gotten.”   
  
“Gag,” Ed says, but he’s still smiling and snuggling Al and the cat.

Al turns a glare on his brother. “You didn’t get Roy a Valentine?”

“Someone else  _ did?”  _ Ed points out. “He says it was the best one he could have gotten, so—”

“I MADE HIM BALD ON IT!” Al says, and pulls away, shaking his head. “I despair of you both.”

“Hug-cuddles, huguggles, nooo,” Ed cries softly, reaching for Al, who dodges out of his reach. The chocolates fall out of the heart when he tilts them wrong, and Ed lets out a heart wrenching cry of despair. “MY CHOCOLATE!”

Something falls out of Al’s pocket too as he dodges, and he sees its the lottery ticket he’d picked up this morning. And just in time for them to announce the winning numbers on the radio, too, which— he’s certain it wasn’t on when he walked in, but there  _ was _ rather a lot happening he supposes. In the silence around Ed snuffling over his spilled candy, it seems much louder, like the sound had turned up several notches. 

“And the winning number for the Central Centaurs Jackpot is… 4. 2. 0. 6. 9.” the announcer seems to pause, and cough a little. “Wow. Uh. Unique configuration, isn’t it? I’ve never seen anything like that, but all odds come out at least once, eh? Congratulations, lucky number 42069!”

Al blinks. The kitten meows.

“Imma call you Kisses,” he tells the kitten. “And you’re going to be my good luck charm, and every time you bring me luck, I’ll give you another kiss. That’s the deal.”

Then he smooches the small cat everywhere he can reach, and the kitten tolerates it admirably, and even happily.

“You bought the number 42069?” Ed asks.

“I found it!” Al says cheerfully.

Ed looks at Al, at the kitten in his arms, at the wheelbarrow by the door, at the radio that hadn’t been on a moment ago, and then at Roy. His face scrunches up in the way it does when he’s presented with a complicated equation missing pieces.

“Don’t rain on my parade,” Al tells him primly. “Sometimes good things just happen.”

“Do they?” Roy mutters.

“You’re god’s favorite idiot,” Ed informs Al. Kisses bats up at Al for more attention, and Ed’s eyes narrow further. “Hey. What’s that cat’s eye color?”

 _“Adorable,”_ Al says, and stares down into the kitten’s eyes, which— well color isn’t important. So that he can’t quite tell isn’t either. He thinks they might be gold, like Ed’s, but-- “They are adorable colored, quite clearly.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Ed says, and stomps out of the room, because he can’t handle a tiny bit of _good luck._

“You’re a storm cloud!” Al calls after him. “A great big farting storm cloud! All over my marching band section!”

No response.

“I’m going to come cuddle you!” he warns. “It’s going to be adorable! And nice! And only good things!” He waits, and Ed doesn’t give in to the tease. “KISSES IS COMING WITH ME!”

“THAT THING ISN’T NATURAL, I CHANGED MY MIND, ROY WAS RIGHT!” Ed yells back.

“For fuck’s— I BOUGHT THE CAT!” Roy shouts.

Al looks at him pityingly. “Oh, Roy. So desperate for attention. You know we love you, right? You don’t have to _lie._ ”

“Goodbye,” he says, and Al giggles as he pretends to leave, barefoot and without his keys. He immediately comes back inside.

The sun has set outside, and given way to the perfect kind of rain for being cozy at home, a soft cold drizzle that steams the inside of the windows and makes being inside feel even more warm and dry than it would otherwise.

***

That night he curls up to sleep, and Kisses curls up on his pillow beside him, rumbling until the poor thing rumbles itself out and it falls into a deep sleep. It’s too young to tell the sex for sure yet, or, well, Al had just felt awkward and intrusive checking. Maybe he can have a nonbinary cat, so they don’t have to have a discussion about this. Yes. That sounds like the kind of thing that will irritate Ed far too much, especially when he leans into it. Perfect.

He drifts off too, his entire body warm and buzzing and content, the perfect end to the perfect day. For once he doesn’t feel like Steel Nerve—nerves of steel, painful scraping steel against the rest of him, nerves that can’t be bent or broken. He just feels like Alphonse.

So of course when he falls into a dream, he’s standing in the Gate.

That’s part of being Alphonse, since he left. You know what they say: you can take the soul and the body out of the Gate if you’re fucking insane, but you can’t take the Gate out of the soul and the body when it goes to sleep.

Truth is sitting in his customary spot, front and center, huge grin. Between his teeth he has a rose.

Al hops out of the Gate. There’s no tentacles in it, grasping and greedy. He’s seen everything it has to offer. He takes a step towards Truth, slides to the floor so that they’re even.

“I suppose you’re going to wish me happy Valentine’s Day,” Al says.

“I suppose you’re going to turn down my invitation for immortality,” Truth replies in Al’s voice.

“I just got a kitten. I can’t turn immortal and stop caring about how they feel, they just _met_ me,” Al says back. He’s always got an excuse. Yesterday it was ‘I still haven’t eaten Winry’s curry, and Ed says it’s to die for. Or, well, that it’ll kill me. If I’m immortal how can I appreciate it?’

Truth bites down on the stem of the rose and it falls to the ground, white expanse that never ends. It’s hopelessly dramatic. The scarlet rose petals drift and disappear.

“And now that that’s out of the way,” Truth says, and flops into a supine pose, propping their head up on their arm. Another rose appears between their teeth, but it doesn’t seem to impede their speech at all. “How’d you like my gifts, Valentine?”

“You really should use your powers for good, if you’re going to be using them at all,” Al points out. Truth frowns.

“But Alphonse,” Truth says. “Didn’t you have a good day?”

“Those are-- you know those are different _good_ ’s. You’re me, so what I know you know.”

Truth laughs, flops onto their back. “You’re right. I’m you. And you’re good. Giving you a good day is the best good I could do. You just don’t know it yet. I’m the _smart_ one.”

Al’s eyes flash, because Truth always does this. Tries to make him— seem more divine than he is. Tries to tempt him into being more than what he knows he is. Because Truth is him, but Truth is him like… if a mirror could talk, and the mirror was telling you truths about the interconnectedness of the universe. Every small One is as important as the All.

Alphonse is aware he’s a bit self centered. That he focuses on the One more than the All.

It’s just uncomfortable when the All is focused on him, too.

Truth sighs, and eats this rose too, swallowing it thorns and all. They sit up so that they’re mirroring each other, legs crossed comfortably. “Tell me about your day, Alphonse,” they say.

“You were there,” he points out, like he always does. Truth just watches him and waits. Al heaves a big sigh. “Well… this happened last but it’s the best part, so get ready to hear about Kisses.”

Truth smiles, wide and wide and wider, teeth and teeth and teeth. “Oh, you’re right. I _was_ there for that bit. But tell me anyways.”

So Al does.

...all in all.

A great day.

And a good night.

**Author's Note:**

> find ang3lba3 on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/cryingiscooltm)


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